Saturday, November 3, 2012

Are there any of you out there....on any position on the political spectrum, that believes that the killing of our Ambassador and three others is 'no big deal', and that it is merely being politicized and blown out of proportion by the right? Do you feel we are being lied to, and that the administration knew what was happening in real time and denied help? Do you believe the pleas for help in the months prior were ignored? How can people see the same tragedy in such different lights based on their political affiliation?

Paul FranklinHavig this be a personal issue for me i find some of the lies and innuendo to swallow.

I want both sides to stop the leaks and do a proper investigation

So for me the time line is sound.... The CIA says no stand down order was given, the military can not be requested into a country unless the amabassador makes the request in writing. the marines cant guard the embassy but private contractors can

So the time line

A minute-by-minute look at how the security teams' response played out. All times are local for Benghazi.

— 9:40 p.m. The CIA annex receives its first call that the consulate has come under attack.— Less than 25 minutes later, the security team leaves the annex en route to the consulate.— Over the next 25 minutes, team members approach the compound and attempt to get heavy weapons. When they cannot secure heavy weapons, they make their way onto the compound itself in the face of enemy fire.— 11:11 p.m. A Defense Department surveillance drone — an unarmed Predator — that had been requested arrives over the consulate compound.— 11:30 p.m. All U.S. personnel have departed the consulate except for Stevens, who is missing. The vehicles come under fire as they leave the facility.

— Over the next 90 minutes, the CIA annex comes under sporadic fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades. The security team returns fire, dispersing the attackers.— Around 1 a.m., a team of additional security personnel from Tripoli lands at the Benghazi airport and attempts to find a ride into town. Upon learning that Stevens is missing and that the situation at the CIA annex has calmed, the team focuses on locating Stevens and obtaining information about the security situation at the hospital.— Before dawn, the team at the airport finally manages to secure transportation and armed escort. Having learned that Stevens is almost certainly dead and that the security situation at the hospital is uncertain, the team heads to the CIA annex to assist with the evacuation. In the attack, the State Department also has said that a department computer expert, Sean Smith, was killed.— 5:15 a.m. The team arrives at the CIA annex, with Libyan support, just before mortar rounds begin to hit the facility. Two security officers are killed when they take direct mortar fire while engaging the attackers. The attack lasts only 11 minutes before dissipating.— Less than an hour later, a heavily armed Libyan military unit arrives at the CIA annex to help evacuate all U.S. personnel and takes them to the airport.

"Over the many years that the DSS has been overseeing guard contracts, the service has learned many lessons (some the hard way). One instructional incident was the September 2007 shooting of civilians in Nisoor Square in Baghdad by Blackwater contractors. Indeed, that incident spurred the DSS to mandate that a DSS agent be present to oversee every motorcade move. This is a big reason why there are now 200 DSS agents in Iraq. Since the DSS only has 2,000 agents to cover its global responsibilities, the mission in Iraq is placing a lot of strain on the organization.

The presence of these agents on motorcades will undoubtedly assist the DSS in monitoring the performance of its contractors, but experience has shown that wherever there are guard contracts there will inevitably be instances of guard company managers attempting to pad profits by claiming compensation for services they did not render or skimping on services. Such problems tend to be relatively small in the case of, say, a 72-man local guard force in Guatemala, although it is not unusual to see a company lose its guard contract due to irregularities or incompetence. When you are talking about billions of dollars worth of guard contracts in Iraq covering thousands of security personnel, however, the potential for contract issues and the size of those issues is magnified. Because of this, the DSS, the State Department Inspector General and the Government Accounting Office will undoubtedly pay very close attention to ensure that contracts are properly fulfilled. The DSS, like many other government agencies, has been heavily criticized for its contract oversight in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past several years and has instituted new controls. Today the service is far better at overseeing such massive contracts than it was at the beginning of its operations in Iraq.

With a total budget of only about $50 billion for the State Department and U.S. Agency of International Development, and with only $14 billion of that total going to fund operations worldwide, the billions earmarked for security in Iraq will certainly appear as a tempting pot of money for someone to raid — much like the funding provided to security programs in the 1980s following the recommendations of the Inman Commission.

As Stratfor has previously discussed, spending for diplomatic security often follows a discernible boom-and-bust cycle. During the boom, there is plenty of money to cover security expenses, but during the bust times, security programs often suffer death by a thousand cuts. Following the infusion of funding for diplomatic security programs in the 1980s, the 1990s saw a period of prolonged program cuts. Indeed, in the wake of the 1998 bombing attacks against the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam, the Crowe Commission, tasked with investigating the matter, concluded in its final report that its members “were especially disturbed by the collective failure of the U.S. government over the past decade to provide adequate resources to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. diplomatic missions to terrorist attacks in most countries around the world.”

Read more: U.S. Diplomatic Security in Iraq After the Withdrawal | Stratfor